They also think they're exceptional. They don't understand boundaries, and they don't understand that women have to deal with that shit from other guys who also think that, everywhere they go. Whether it be cat calls at the grocery store or advances at work.

I don't know Sacca or McClure, and from their writing and the way they project themselves, I don't think they seem like the type of people I care to spend time around, but it's pretty clear that this is a bad combination of arrogance and ignorance rather than malice. I had to stop reading Sacca's post after the 5th page of him talking about how great he is, but it sounds like he definitely had his Come To Jesus moment and is genuinely remorseful and working on not being an ass. That's a far better outcome than premature ostracization. Save that for the Bill Cosbys.

In order to make progress, I think it is important to recognize this distinction. There are no doubt some actual predators out there, but they need to be dealt with very differently than the dumbasses. I say that in part as a recovering dumbass myself, and as someone who faced accusations of malice and manipulation (in matters completely unrelated to women) when that was absolutely not the case. Hanlon's Razor and all.

Because this disclaimer seems necessary in posts like this, I am in no way condoning his actions or the actions of people like this. However, it certainly seems like we're looking at an interesting area where the personality characteristics required to be successful may be orthogonal to 21st century social norms. (Venture capital.) I'd argue that another similar area is war fighting, and that this could be a plausible explanation (not excuse) for why sexual harassment can be so high in those areas as well.

But then there's the argument of the banality of evil. We spend a lot of time thinking about the black swans of evilness, but I'd argue a lot more damage is done on aggregate by mundane shittiness.

Dark Triad, anybody?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

Basically, power corrupts. Being a boss, an investor, or an employer comes with power. Just having the cachet of being involved with startups carries a certain small amount of power in itself. Combine this corruption with the powerful instincts around sex and mating, and really bad things can happen.

I'm probably going to be attacked for this, but I really wish women would be overt and name such things. (Here, I'm talking about workplace norms in CA in general, not any of the specific situations of women named in the NYT article.) As it is, there are so many provisions for deniability, being second guessed, and not overtly saying "I'm not interested" that it really muddies the waters. I think it would help if women just said, "No. I'm sorry, but I don't think of you this way." or, "No, sorry, but I think I should keep business and personal matters separate." Wasn't clear and direct communication part and parcel of the "no means no" message in the first place? By creating norms where women think it's dangerous to just come out and say no, it's like we're creating an operating assumption where any man who might hear "no" has to be considered some kind of unstable potential attacker. To me, this is the sort of "fainting couch" feminism that regards women as only potential victims who can't stand up for themselves and who must be protected by others. To say the overt "no" -- to directly say what you want and mean -- is to claim agency as an adult. It's a chance for the refused to show acceptance. It's a chance for every party involved to coexist as equals.

Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between. I just don't think this is suitable verbal behavior for supposedly rational adults. Okay, now you angry and misguided young "activists" come and lay on the aspersions that I'm some sort of morally deficient person.

It's not fainting couch feminism, it's pragmatic feminism. These interactions happen in a context where peoples' livelihoods, their hopes and dreams, are on the line. Are you going to expect them to jeopardize that by overtly calling someone out?

There is a reason we put the onus on men to not make unwanted advances instead of putting it on women to clearly reject them. It's costless to refrain from hitting on your coworkers/underlings/potential hires. In contrast, there is potentially a very high cost to a woman overtly rejecting an advance. At best, it results in hurt feelings and embarrassment in a superior/potential boss/potential investor. At worst, it can result in negative repercussions (a coworker badmouthing you as "a bitch," a hiring manager passing on your application, an investor passing on your idea).

If you consider yourself a decent person, why would you put someone else between a rock and a hard place like that? There are literally billions of women on the planet, and 99.99% don't work with you/for you.

To stcredzero, he's innocuously asking a woman colleague of equal rank, who he has rapport with, out to a movie. He sees it as an opportunity to develop a relationship that could lead to a happy marriage. He doesn't get that many opportunities due to various reasons, so he's taking the chance he has.

She sees it as yet another colleague asking her out, when it's likely another male colleague asked her on a date that very morning, along with the dude on BART and one on the street as she walked to work.

The workplace should be focused on work, not another place where a woman has to be on guard.

People do form romantic relationships from working relationships. This should be approached with the utmost of care, because the workplace isn't the appropriate place.

The appropriate place is social events, with mutual friends; a Tinder date; a friendship struck at your local Linux Users Group meetup (you never know), etc.

I am a bit amazed that simply expressing your preferences when overtly asked is to be thought of as "calling someone out." If a coworker was to always pretend to agree with you on all matters of taste, I'd think of that person as spineless. Yet, most matters of taste are far less important than preferences of companionship.

At worst, it can result in negative repercussions

Nowadays, the phrase, "I don't feel comfortable with..." has negative repercussions in the same league.

If you consider yourself a decent person, why would you put someone else between a rock and a hard place like that? There are literally billions of women on the planet, and 99.99% don't work with you/for you.

If you read the thread, you will discover that no one was working for anyone, and this was for a volunteer organization outside of work.

You're blaming women for not being "adult" enough in their response to juvenile male behavior. It is these men who should start acting like adults.

And how do you know the women didn't say no? The article notes that some of the women faced retribution after rebuffing men.

> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between.

It sounds like you need to work on reading other peoples' comfort level with your behavior. In a professional setting the standard is very high for ensuring you are not making someone uncomfortable. Consider how a customer would feel if they walked in a store and, out of the blue, got hit on by staff that they had zero chemistry with. Who then the blames the customer for not being "adult" enough.

That's a ridiculous false dichotomy. When people own their preference and viewpoint, people respect them more. Men who act like juveniles should clearly act more adult. Fully grown women who act like they're timid middle-schoolers should also act more adult. It's the workplace where people communicate honestly and clearly that produces results when breaking new ground and dealing with subtle and complex trade-offs. (Again, this isn't a discussion of people or events in the article, but rather a general one.)

The problem here is you're not reading signals correctly. If someone says any variation of "I don't think..." that means they are not interested. If they are interested but just legitimately busy or whatever they will 100% suggest a time that will work or at least give you some kind of an in. Granted, there can be mixed signals and it's not always the easiest thing to figure out, but you have to just accept it for what it is. The truth is asking people out is hard, rejecting people is hard, and we have these little dances to save face.

It's not the responsibility of the person being pursued to protect the pursuer. It's pretty straight forward: if you ask someone out several times, and they keep making up excuses, they're not interested. Stop asking.

Very much this. People who've been rejected (male or female) can definitely be vindictive, nasty, and just plain evil. :(

I'm guessing it comes from their feelings of hurt inside from the rejection given. Which (personally) indicates how badly I sucked with interpersonal skills when rejecting people in my younger years. eg I'm pretty direct with people, but had literally no tact when younger. Bad combo. Ugh.

Did you ask multiple times? This sounds like what could easily happen when someone won't take the initial "no," implicit or not, for an answer. Based on the rest of your comment, I expect so.

A few important points:

1. Repeated asking has been held to be sexual harassment, if repeated for long enough.

2. Here's a simple rule: ask once, and only once. She knows where you work. If she's interested, she'll ask for a rain check and get back to you.

> I just don't think this is suitable verbal behavior for supposedly rational adults

3. Rational adults understand and respond to signalling. They don't demand that all communication happen explicitly and on their terms, because they know that such demands are ineffective for all purposes, will not be heeded, and might make them social pariahs.

Which is why people behave that way in airplane cockpits and the bridges of submarines. (Actually, such behavior has gotten people killed in those contexts.)

If someone is insisting on an implicit level of signalling, they can be just as guilty of insisting foolishly as someone insisting on the explicit level. When implicit communications are demanded for 1) a higher stakes situation on the basis of 2) the supposed potential victim status of one party -- something is way out of whack. Not only is the safety of clear communications being abrogated, the danger being borne is skewed to just one party.

Beyond the level of the social white lie, if you're advocating deniability to "be safe" you're probably doing something dishonest on some level. Extending the mechanism of the social white lie to a situation where more is at stake is just foolish.

Nobody is going to die if you can't date someone.

Again, I advocate a conservative approach to getting a date with a coworker. One request, declined for any reason, should be treated as a firm no absent explicit signals to the contrary (request for a rain check, some other sort of proactive, explicitly date-seeking behavior from the other party). Your odds of getting into trouble under this rule are so vanishingly small as to be nonexistent. If you choose some less conservative rule, including, apparently, whatever rule you've been following up to this point, your risks are higher.

Of course, there's also the issue of not wanting to make your woman coworkers uncomfortable. I would hope that would be something of intrinsic value to you, and that on this basis alone you might change your behavior after seeing its impact in the past. The fact that you're still arguing about this makes me doubt that you do value their comfort the way that I think you should. But I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people in a way that's going to stick. :(

No, it doesn't; that description negates the agency and responsibility of the powerful.

Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses.

Huh?

Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses.

You just said the same thing!

We absolutely should encourage this, but let's not ignore that we need to build a culture that doesn't ostracize and attack people when they do this.

So far, we have HR departments that have an incentive to ignore, minimize or deflect these problems. We have a culture of employment that says that this is all part of dealing with a job in a tough industry. And we have internet trolls ready to harass people when they come out against this behavior.

The first part, of asserting yourself and claiming your agency, is extraordinarily important. But there's so much more to it. If someone is sexually harassed, and they hit a brick wall at every turn, the best case scenario is that they ditch the startup or tech industry and go to more established companies that actually have a solid culture and process in place. And that is an absolute loss for everyone, especially because the kind of person who can see everything weighed against them and still takes a stand is what the startup scene is supposed to be all about. We shouldn't punish or ignore those people.

At a certain point, one has to believe that another's actions are evil, even if that evil is unwitting. One mustn't actively choose to be "evil and predatory" to be so in fact.

So something can become so horrible, that even a mistaken action should be defined as evil? Sorry, but that sounds wrong, and itself willfully vengeful. In that case, shouldn't we just do away with manslaughter and just say everyone who has killed someone is a murderer?

Even in cases where intent isn't there, other factors (for example, hitting and killing someone while driving drunk or too far over the speed limit) can make an accidental killing murder.

I don't think that you can make the argument that any of the men in question did not intend to make sexual advances on these women.

To horribly misuse Aaron Sorkin:

Sam: About a week ago I accidentally slept with a prostitute.

Toby: Really?

Sam: Yes.

Toby: You accidentally slept with a prostitute.

Sam: Call girl.

Toby: Accidentally.

Sam: Yes.

Toby: I don't understand. Did you trip over something?

How is that relevant to your point? It seems like the opposite of your point.

In other words, while it might be possible to "accidentally sexually harass" a person, there's much more involved than "did the harasser think they were harassing?"

Rather, it matters whether the person in question deliberately chose to perform the actions that compose harassment.

To use programming terminology, sexual harassment is an interface, not a class. One need not deliberately implement it if all the requirements are met.

At this level of lack of empathy and thought, I see no functional difference between malice and inability.

> There are no doubt some actual predators out there, but they need to be dealt with very differently than the dumbasses.

How so? Both need boundaries first and foremost. When they don't respect boundaries voluntarily, those need to be enforced, always preferably by the persons whose boundaries they are violating and every witness to it.

Beyond that there are the differences. With a dumbass, they may learn not to sting, with someone who got turned into a scorpion, you might have to always wear a glove when feeding them, forever. Which is okay, but it's not okay to leave out the glove because for some of those you're handling without gloves, they might stop stinging at some point.

Though I agree in that you should not label people as dumbass or scorpion before hand. Enforce boundaries, explain your reasoning and emotions firmly and repeatedly. As if to your little dumbass brother, theoretically a peer you love lots, but right now someone you put in their place because you love them and they just won't stop kicking dogs or hurting other kids or drinking bleach. This has to be true, this cannot be faked, you have to muster the love too, not just the anger; and even only some will be able to notice and believe that. It will trickle into some, completely wash over others -- but you can only find that out by doing it. This also implies giving everyone the chance(s).

But don't go by their words. Don't trust user input, treat all of it like potential exploits. Do what you have to do anyway, and in this case you can go "great, then you won't mind these changes, if you had this Come To Jesus moment. If that was just a bluff, you'll shit bricks, enjoy". Cooperation is very desirable and should always be welcome, but it is not required.

this becomes so complicated.

In my line of work, which involves authority positions, I see this sort of thing happen a lot (not most of the time, but regularly):

Junior female supervisee becomes romantically involved with male supervisor. It's consensual, not predatory at all. Two people working closely together in closely related positions (I'm not talking CEO-secretary here, I'm talking something more closely matched in rank). Female supervisee might even brag about it or something in informal circles. It's obvious that part of what is happening is that the woman is attracted to ambition, authority, power, etc., even if they don't acknowledge this openly at the time (after all, they are seeking this for themselves). Relationship goes south (not always, though, about as often as any relationship), and then female supervisee blames male supervisor for taking advantage of her, brainwashing her, etc. Maybe even accuse supervisor of sexual harassment.

What I'm seeing in the NY Times piece is not this. None of the people I'm talking about would ever just proposition a potential hire.

However, I think it increases the ambiguity about appropriate behavior. If women in these positions are actively encouraging relationships sometimes (and people hear about this, in sorts of open secret situations), then for people who are already confused, it becomes even more confusing.

My guess is these guys are hitting on women in the same way they might anywhere, without realizing the position of power they have. As you say, I think it's a matter of social sophistication more than anything else.

It's unethical, because the superior/subordinate relationship makes a romantic affair coercive even if nobody participating intends it to be.

It's a leadership failure because the superior should behave better than the subordinate as part of providing their leadership function. Yes, you could say the suborndinate started it or whatever, but the superior is supposed to know better than to get involved with that. If you don't want people to be confused, don't add to the confusion by dipping your pen in the company ink.

Fraternization is different from harassment. Among other things, consent is irrelevant. It also covers a broader scope than romantic relationships. The inappropriateness of the relationship comes from the disruption in the chains of command and responsibility, and the conflicts of interest that are inherent in the relationship.

I think that the military is correct in forbidding this kind of relationship, because of the effects you mentioned. It doesn't have to be confusing. It just needs to also be considered inappropriate by the organization.

It is also quite unlikely that people who climb the ladder and successfully play "impress investors and people around" social skills game are so clueless magically when they are alone with women. Somehow they manage to be cluefull when acting like a peacock would harm their career.

I would believe claim about dumbass, if we would talk about dude down in the basement that insulted CEO last week. Then yeah, he is clueless. But in cases here, it is really too much benefit of doubt.

Not everyone who likes to take advantage of other person (including when genders are reversed) is clueless.

Majority of men including those on the spectrum are not like that. When you claim that this is normal misunderstanding, you throw shadow on them too.

One of them would casually explain in conversations the software he had written to crawl dating website. We was very open with things such as the mirror above his bed, sharing pictures of it. Before leaving the company at last, he had received multiple sanctions including an interdiction to get too close to some women who had worked with him.

Had I not met those people, I would be unable to believe that they exist.

My theory is that they are bold, assertive and have no shame. They don't "play" with people; people like them. They seduce managers and investors. They try to do the same with coworkers.

That sounds quite far away. He did not get info after first two and still honestly does not understand his behavior is not welcome? I mean, if you get the note from HR that you are not allowed to approach person x anymore, then maybe the seducing strategy does not work? Then again, people are not all that rational in general.

This sounds like my last CEO...

Given the many first-hand accounts of ordinary everyday harassment and men who flat-out do not seem to understand what is and isn't inappropriate, or what the words "no" or "I'm not interested" or "leave me alone" mean, yes, it does seem there is a significant population for whom this type of basic education is absolutely and vitally necessary.

Think of it like driver licensing -- many people, probably most adults, are, with a few lessons, perfectly capable of safely operating a car in most situations. And would seek out those lessons (whether paid from a professional teacher, or informally from an experienced friend or family member) regardless of whether they were required. But enough people wouldn't that we have to force every single person who wants to drive to obtain a license through a process that involves examination of their knowledge of driving and traffic rules.

So "teach about how not to harass/teach about consent/etc." should not be interpreted as "this person is calling out 100% of all men alive as well as me, personally and directly, out of blind hate", but rather as "just like driver licensing, there are enough assholes out there who ruin things that we probably need to make sure people are taught this".

Also, mandatory teaching/training ensures that nobody can pull a "well I didn't think that was wrong" excuse -- if people are taught what is and isn't acceptable, and there's a record of them being taught it, then they know it's wrong and we know they know.

Knowing how to communicate with people who are different from you, knowing how to disagree with another without insulting them, knowing how to check sexual desires in inappropriate settings, knowing when you are operating from a position of power rather than influence ... these are often not at all obvious, they are learned.

Everyone can benefit from this type of education.

e.g. bell hooks' film stuff, The Bechdel Test, Anita Sarkeesian's work, etc.

This problem forms in large part because men are too attached to media that reinforces notions of women as secondary people, objects, and reward trophies.

The problem is that people's empathy with women going through harassment abruptly stops when they themselves are implicated in some manner.

Yes, let's make it a thought crime to think of women as "secondary people, objects and reward trophies" and punish them for thinking it, instead of punishing actual physical criminal behavior. Let's ban and burn books because we don't like the type of behavior they "create" in males.

That probably is exactly the same here. These men have been socially conditioned to be assholes. Which, in my eyes, means that there actually should be room for some empathy. Which doesn't mean excusing their behavior, but it means understanding that despite their power and money, they are like every other human being the product of their environment and culture.

And this culture is a joint product of every single member of it.

Mark Manson wrote an insightful essay about this, titled "What's the problem with men". Tl;dr: "We unfairly objectify women in society for their beauty and sex appeal. Similarly, we unfairly objectify men for their professional success and aggression."

https://markmanson.net/whats-the-problem-with-men

I have friend who is an employment lawyer. When I first asked her what she does she said "I keep old white men out of trouble". How sad.

Edit fixed typo

Statistics have shown for a while now that psychopaths or sociopaths are drawn to positions of power and are therefor overrepresented in those positions.

On the other hand, excessive power (== money) often brings the worst out of us, as power appeals to our (sick/immature) need to dominate those around us (on a personal or even global scale). Domination can act like a drug. And once the brain is hooked on that drug, it's hard to go clean again.

Excessive power (== money) takes a lot of maturity to be handled ethically. Obviously, a lot of people fail hard.

Which is why our society should fight any type of inequality until it's completely gone.

I don't think this actually follows from the prior premises you put forth. If I'm the 10x programmer, do I need to have my performance handicapped because some psychopaths exist somewhere in the world? That's a kind of inequality which I would argue isn't relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

We in IT are definitely not alone dealing with this bullcrap. I wonder why there's no more "unmasking" in these other sectors. Maybe the victims don't want to risk being unofficially blacklisted?

Many people say this but I wonder why they believe it.

Women are almost exactly half of the workforce in the US, but hold only 25% of the jobs in computing. So that would imply the industry is worse than average. And the trend is going the wrong way: women were a much bigger presence in tech 20 years ago. IMHO, stories like the ones in this article are very common and are a major reason why. And that hurts everyone who works in tech.

Moreover, the fact that other industries may also have a gender problem in no way excuses what's going on in the linked article.

With regards to "...ask a woman..." and "...the fact that other industries may also have a gender problem..." -- neither of these remarks have anything to do with what I said. I have some doubts about the claim posted earlier, to the effect that tech is worse than other "major industries", because I have never seen anything to back that up -- but two wrongs do not make a right and I never said anything like that.

To support these ideas I guess I would like to know, what are these major industries and what are the axes of comparison?

If this kind of factual scrutiny seems wrong in the face of the present emergency, I have to ask you: when would it ever be right?

Why is it important to know how tech ranks against other industries anyway? How is that actionable information? Is the point to be able to claim "it's not our problem"? I don't think that's a useful line of thought. Even if tech were above average (and, again, it isn't) that doesn't in any way excuse the behavior in the NYT article.

If you don't think a comparison to other industries is important, why did you bring it up to begin with?

> I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work.

> Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not.

Spot on, sadly a much overlooked and ignored fact. While "sexism" certainly feeds into that, it's not the actual problem, the problem being that "assholes" often end up being very successful people because they can easily force their will upon others, regardless of gender.

This is the very same dynamic which leads to "assholes" being way overrepresented in CEO positions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201...

These are ruthless personalities and their success is often build upon exactly that ruthlessness. Why should the silicon valley vc ecosystem be exempt from that dynamic? It seems it ain't: https://www.saastr.com/are-silicon-valley-venture-capitalist...

As a male, on the short end of that naturally existing power dynamic, you are flat out of luck because you can't point at your gender and generate drama to monetize on or take whole companies down, instead you are lumped up into a big sack as part of the supposedly "systematic problem" by labeling it a "male dominated culture", taking every male person into a quasi sippenhaft trough guild by gender association in the "fight against sexism".

As somebody who considers himself a somewhat decent person, this whole tone in the discourse is getting rather tiresome because this also creates quite an oppressive environment for people who merely want to find a relationship partner. I feel guilty just thinking about approaching women on the street, I've rebuffed advances by female coworkers because that's not considered "appropriate", I don't want to approach that nice cashier in the supermarket because I fear I might bother her/creep her out. And because I've always been rather awkward with social situations, the outcome is quite predictable: I've been single for these last 10 years, while constantly being told how much of an asshole I'm for having been born with a dick.

Yesterday I read an article about Tinder in the German Cosmopolitan: http://www.cosmopolitan.de/dating-app-tinder-tinder-im-test-...

One of it's points being that a big draw for many women is how they like being "admired" by so many men on Tinder in the same way they used to appreciate being catcalled: "Es ist dieses dauerhafte Umgarntwerden, das den Reiz ausmacht. Wie früher das Hinterherpfeifen oder Zuzwinkern.

So what's the message here? What is a single male supposed to do in such an enviornment? Some women like the catcalling, others consider it harassment. Meaning: The saver option is not to catcall, but that also results in vastly reduced chances of getting to know any woman at all. Especially when the "competition" does not bother at all and just keeps on catcalling and thus actually ends up getting to know new people, while you sit in your misery alone thinking "Well, at least I didn't harass anybody.." hell of a good time!

Then there is online dating, which has it's own slew of massive issues as a single male. Competition is extra fierce because on these platforms quite often men outnumber women 2:1 or worse. There you might not be called out for harassing that quickly, but there you need a harassing like behavior to be actually successful. You need to be somewhat dishonest about yourself in your presentation, you need to approach/contact as many women as possible (while disregarding their plight of getting spammed), to increase your chances for a successful reply and meeting.

All these are things "we" are supposed not to do, yet they seem like the only viable tactic to any measurable "success". Nobody is gonna start a relationship with me because I'm just such a nice guy who didn't come on to her, those are exactly the kind of signals that keep you in the notorious "friend zone" for all eternity, but those are the kind of signals that are seemingly expected from males in any and all situations or else you might be considered a "creep" or a "harasser".

This get's even worse when culture actually adapts. Not too long ago a common complaint would be how "Men always feign romantic interest to get sex", true enough. Now increasingly men (and some women) have become more pragmatic about this and state their intentions in quite a blunt way and guess what? That can quite easily also be interpreted as "sexual harassment" when somebody comes on to you with "I'd like to have sex with you".

So what's a single guy to do? Especially when you are also lucky enough to be on the spectrum and have a hard enough time parsing social situations already, this constant ambiguity makes it an impossibility to improve my understanding about social interactions and dynamics, literally paralyzing me.

I'm in my mid-30's and I've given up any intend to actively look for a partner because I don't want to inconvenience anybody with my failed approaches or end up being seen as some kind of "creep" who "harasses" people and makes them feel uncomfortable, when that's actually the exact opposite of my intensions.

As to how to meet women (take this advise with a mountain of salt, was never a ladies man, have been married for 20 years and never cheated, so haven't flirted in 20 years :), play the odds; join groups that do stuff that interest you, get in a position to meet women, and meet them as people first, make friends and then relationships might develop; (and if not, you have more friends, and had fun doing whatever you were doing). That is, don't go to meetups (or pokemon tournaments, or the church choir, or ...) to hook up, go there because you want to be there, and, chances are, if you meet enough women you will find your match.

Is there consent? If you're not sure, don't do it.

And so a follow-up: do you think a VC pitch by someone of the opposite gender represents consent to making a sexual advance?

"Do you sexually harass?" or "Do you have consent?" Such statements underestimate the untold complexities pretty much all social interaction are based on.

That's why solutions to these problems are not as simple as some people like to pretend. Nobody really likes talking to each other bluntly, everything always has to be implied or "said trough the flower", leaving way too much room for ambiguity and as such misunderstandings that keep on going on as nobody wants to be the guy/gal angering the elephant in the room.

About your VC pitch question: Really depends on the type of sexual advance. While I don't practice it personally I don't see anything wrong with somebody telling another person "I consider you very attractive, do you want to have a good time with me?", it's a given that some people might not be as classy with their choice of words.

Yet it's quite direct, it's to the point and thus doesn't leave much room for misinterpretation or waste anybody's time with ambiguity. As such I don't see why anybody would need consent for asking, first and foremost it's just a question and not an insult, order or the "objectification" of somebody.

It's another story if with "sexual advances" you mean something like groping, uninvited kissing or any other uncalled for body contact. Needless to say, that's a no-go and nobody ever claimed otherwise.

So maybe analyze that feeling. Because the reason you don't have a relationship is not because you can't casually sexually harass women.

Different people consider different things "uncomfortable" during different times. It's an emotion, that's why there are no objective clear cut standards for "what to say without making anybody uncomfortable", it's dynamic just like many societal norms are.

The reason I don't practice the direct approach myself is that, as I've already mentioned, I'm just not interested in casual sex and I'm rather introverted. The irony being: Guys who actually practice it, are more likely to end up in relationships.

Using the direct approach for getting into a relationship, which I have tried, quite often just ends up being seen as the epitome of creepiness and results in ridicule and shaming.

> So maybe analyze that feeling.

I "analyze feelings" pretty much constantly, even over needless memories way in the past. The issue being that you can't look into other peoples heads to analyze their "feelings", as to not to offend them with something you might say or do.

> Because the reason you don't have a relationship is not because you can't casually sexually harass women.

That's never what I argued for and you putting my statements so much out of context, to make me look like something I ain't, just reenforces my original point.

Academic sexism: pervasive attitudes that tend to favor masculine-coded genders over feminine-coded genders. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against masculine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).

Colloquial sexism: being a jerk to someone because of their gender. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against feminine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).

Both are valid, but they're focusing on different things. Sometimes assholes are just assholes. Sometimes they know they can get away with it because of pervasive attitudes. It's hard to say who has it worse because no one believes anyone when they report, so statistics are notoriously unreliable.

Now what freshly contrieved linguistic contraption is this? Just say "male" and "female", or "men" and "women", no need to obey the latest gender studies fad.

The sentiment among many men working in the tech industry is that you can get crucified for making even a small compliment to a female. This idea of invulnerability would only be common among top executives and others who wield high amounts of power.

Nope.

These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes.

Never attribute to rational decision making what can be attributed to rotten character.

This wrong "bad apples" analogy as it applies to police or genocide perpetrators also is dangerous because it's simply untrue. Well meaning people will commit atrocities if directed to by a superior authority figure; the Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgram experiments underscore this.

Instead, there must be social and business pressures brought to bear to prevent emboldened behavior with accountability. If there is boundaryless affluenza anarchy, spoiled brats will overtly behave however they wish. If there are consequences, the behavior will be reduced and become covert. There must be constant vigilance on the part of those stakeholders to enforce consistent accountability for professional/personal behavior.

Rather than refuse to understand how someone could have gotten there, let's try to understand the assumptions they made along the way. Then rather than pretending we're unaffected by the culture around us, let's see if we share some of those assumptions. If we want to fix things rather than be blindsided by them, these are at least the first steps.

Some of the actions described in the article are crimes - these assholes should be prosecuted.

There are two reasons for this. First, punishment of the "bad apples" deters others in the future, and brings about the larger societal change. Second, as a basic principal of a free society, people must be held accountable for their actions.

What this article is about: rich white men are sexist.

I fail to see the connection.

And yeah, actually, your culture and socialization is a big part of what you are. You can blame them, but refusing to try and understand how they became assholes means nothing will change.

To be fair, even an asshole may show some restraint when they have a clear understanding of consequences. Thinking their money buys them immunity from consequence is an enabler as they don't believe they have the slightest need for this kind of rational self-interest.

You are both right, an asshole is an asshole as you suggest, but even so, assholes are worse when they think they won't face consequences as the poster your replied to implied.

I think one of the larger problems that society is struggling with is the idea that two different people can be in very similar proximity, interact with the same people and yet one can have to suffer through radically different (and horrible) treatment.

The reason I believe this is so difficult, is the other person legitimately think "I know that person, I know that place, I've gone through that and I've never seen anything remotely close to that." And reasonably conclude that it didn't happen. It's difficult to accept that there is an entire world that they don't ever experience.

But we all need a find a way to account for this, because too many people go through beimg mistreated and their concerns are simply dismissed.

I think it is an interesting thing I see with successful people that they often attribute too much of there success to their personalities and too little to luck and circumstances. This makes them believe their own bullshit about how great they are, and how bad other people are.

As much as I would like to see punishment for clearly abusive and shitty behavior like this article describes, 90% of the time it comes down to character profiles as this thread explains. Even if it found its way into court, the defense would almost certainly try to be framed as a misunderstanding. Instead of punishing and potentially ruining lives for what is sounding like thought-crime, lets just get men off the pedestal and put them on the same goddamned level as women. A woman shouldn't have to defend her reputation for not being slutty if she gets groped, assaulted or raped, and more importantly shouldn't have to fear retaliation for accusing someone of being not just an asshole, but a dangerous asshole.

[0] as a white man, it is my privilege to make sweeping statements about whites and men b^)

These days it feels like we've learn nothing from stories like the Scarlet Letter that describe a time from our history where we treated women how you now propose that we treat men. Neither gender deserves this.

What you are seeing is the decline of rational and logical thinking. No one wants to think critically anymore, because smart phones reduce available cognitive resources.

So you end up in situations where an inflammatory, poorly researched article emotionally hijacks the brain of a person who would have normally been capable of rational thinking.

I'm not saying that's the case here, but there are numerous cases where outrage porn has ruined the lives of innocent people.

I think they often are. But you don't hear about it, because almost no one cares about males at the bottom of the social ladder. At the bottom, men are "valued" (for a lack of a better word) even less than women.

I'm sure they use their positions of power in many different ways that affect both men and women, but their sexual advances obviously target women because most of them are straight.

Generally, when guys get screwed over by a terrible VCs it's "well they're a terrible vc ... you know them." But when it's by women "they crossed this boundry? I'm shocked!"

> These people are assholes because they know they can get away with it.

So yes, openly bigoted people are assholes. But if they knew their bigotry wouldn't fly, they would at least not be open about it and not be assholes to people.

The exact opposite is true. Almost nobody would take a man who complains about sexual harassment seriously. Just look at the night and day difference in response to teacher student abuse when the student is a guy or a girl.

I do not understand what world people live in where constant special concern is twisted into a lack of it. I mean, I do, in so far as it's just benevolent sexism masquerading as equality, but I can't wrap my head around those people considering themselves rational.

This kind of thinking is even worse than what they did, because it crystalizes them into some of their decisions and deprives them of being human.

While their acts are bullying, harassment, etc., this characterization is not that different to labelling a race inferior (or attributing some other characteristic as an unshakeable part of it). Only instead of a race it does that to a person (or a number of persons) based on past behavior.

People change, people can behave like assholes in one instance and be sweet and caring in another, and tons of other distinctions.

In the end, this type of thinking is what condemns those convicted in the US to inhuman treatment -- the belief that they are incorrigible because of something they did, and as thus deserve only hell.

  But the very same people who are good sometimes
  Are the very same people who are bad sometimes.

That's actually a medical/psychiatric diagnosis. I don't really think it applies here (or maybe it does, I don't know, I only know that you can't just throw that casually at run-of-the mill creeps).

Bill Cosby for instance could possibly be considered one. His also seems more methodical. What's worse: 60 possible rapes spanning decades or 60 possible rapes spanning a year?

I'd love to know what you mean here, because I can't see how this follows anything.

Life pro tip: just say them in a calm, explicit and direct manner that you are not interested in receiving their visits and information from them. They respect that. They might show up after a year or so, just to check out if this is the same family living under the number.

They're pretty organised and respectful in what they do, so polite and direct works best.

You have never seen slow walkers move that fast from the building.